A Daughter Who Will Dote on Her Father
by tinylexie
Summary: Darken Rahl thinks about how things would have been different if he and Kahlan had had a daughter instead of a son.


The Seeker was gone.

He would no longer haunt me.

I was finally free of him.

Victory was finally mine,

Victory that was completed

With you, Kahlan, my love.

Having you was even better

Then finally being rid of the Seeker.

You were the Seeker's love, Kahlan,

And you loved him in return.

You loved him so intensely

And you hated me so deeply

That you went into the Con Dar.

I will never forget that moment, Kahlan,

Nor will I ever forget the moment

Where you said that I was unlovable.

Your venomous yet beautiful voice,

Your blood red eyes,

I will never forget those things.

Your sharp, harsh words cut me

In an area I didn't even know existed.

Your passion filled eyes paralyzed me.

You are a creature of passion, Kahlan.

You are a tigress, a fiery warrior.

You are my equal, Kahlan.

I have laid with my best Mord-Sith,

But none of them

Could ever hope to match you.

They lack your passion and your love.

You are both beautiful and dangerous, Kahlan.

You are capable of both strong love and strong hate.

I have never before met a woman

With such a dangerous but remarkable combination.

I had to have you,

And it wasn't just because you belonged to the Seeker,

The man who had ruined my life

Long before he even existed.

The Seeker could never hope

To be your equal, Kahlan.

It was only a bonus to me

That you and the Seeker love each other.

It was only a bonus to me

That I now had for my wife and queen

The woman that my baby brother

Had desired for himself.

I was as gentle with you as I could be, Kahlan.

I couldn't treat you like I would treat

One of my Mord-Sith.

I respected you too much for that.

I respected you, Kahlan,

Even though you never treated me

With anything but hate,

Because you had moved me

In a way that I didn't know

I could be moved.

I wished for your love, Kahlan,

But I never received it.

However, you did bring me great happiness.

You gave me a child

That would be a worthy heir.

I was so happy the day our son was born,

But you were full

Of so much despair and anger, Kahlan.

The intense hate inside you

Once again reared its face.

As I held our beautiful baby son,

I was once again overwhelmed by your passion.

Even though your eyes were not blood red,

I was once again paralyzed by them.

Perhaps, like my brother, I am not your equal either.

I prepared myself for your flow

Of harsh, sharp, cutting words.

You have been taught, my beloved Kahlan,

To see male Confessors as evil,

Just like you have been taught

To see me as evil.

Why else would you want to kill our son,

An innocent baby,

A baby who had not done any evil

Besides existing?

When you ordered me

To let you kill our son, Kahlan,

I loved our son more

Than I loved you.

I felt our son's plight.

When I had been a baby,

People wanted me to kill me

For my mere crime of existing.

Prophecy said that I would be evil,

Just like people say

That male Confessors will be evil.

My son and I were the same.

We were both living in a narrow-minded world

That saw us as monsters.

You should have known better, Kahlan.

Many people see you as a monster

Because of your Confessor power.

How could you, Kahlan, a monster yourself,

According to the narrow-minded world,

Be so narrow-minded yourself

And condemn our son

For the crime of existing?

I held our son close to me

As I left your bed, Kahlan.

I stood and turned away from you, my love,

As I held our son close to me.

You wanted to kill him,

And he needed a security blanket.

My father had never been

A security blanket for me,

And I had made the decision

From the moment

That I first saw our son

That I would be a better father to my son

Than my father was to me.

Unlike my father, I would love my child.

Unlike my father, who saw me as evil,

I would never see my child as evil.

My child was not evil

Just because he was a male Confessor,

Just like I am not evil

Just because prophecy said so.

My son and I were the same.

He needed me.

I was disappointed in you, Kahlan.

You were supposed

To be the nurturing one.

I knew nothing

About taking care of a baby.

You were supposed to teach me, Kahlan,

How to be the best father possible.

You were supposed to help me

Raise our son into a great ruler,

A ruler that the world could be proud of,

Despite the fact that the world sees him as evil.

You tried to compromise with me, Kahlan.

You offered to give me another child.

You were actually willing to lie with me again,

Even after you had made it clear to me

That I disgusted you.

You were willing to do me a great kindness.

I loved you once more, Kahlan.I loved you even more

When you spoke the kindest words

That you ever spoken to me.

You offered to give me

A daughter who would dote on her father.

You were willing to give me a child

That would actually love me.

Believe me, Kahlan,

For a moment,

I wanted to give in to your request.

I wanted to give you our son,

So that you could kill him

Before lying with me again

And giving me a loving daughter,

A daughter who would dote on her father.

What would having a daughter be like?

Rahl heirs have always been boys,

A Confessor heir

Would have been a different story,

Even if it had been a girl.

I could have loved a girl

In a way

That I could have never loved a boy.

Our daughter would have been spoiled, Kahlan.

She would have had to been trained

To fight and to rule, of course.

After all,

Both her parents are warriors and rulers.

She would have had to be hard

Because rulers must sometimes

Make difficult decisions.

But I would have never tried

To break our daughter, Kahlan.

I would have never

Wanted a Mord-Sith daughter.

My Mord-Sith are incapable of feeling.

I would not have wanted

Our daughter to be that way.

I would have wanted our daughter

To be like you, Kahlan,

Fierce and passionate when necessary

But also capable of love and compassion.

For a moment,

I waned to exchange our son

For a daughter,

But only for a moment.

Our son and I, after all, were the same.

Would should our son have to die?

He had just as much of a right to live

As you did, Kahlan.

Being a male Confessor does not make him evil,

Just like you are not evil

Just because you are a Confessor.

There is more to you, Kahlan,

Than just your Confessor power.

Your Confessor power

Allowed for the Blood Rage,

But the passion that sparked the Con Dar

Had nothing to do

With you being a Confessor.

You would be just as passionate

As you are, Kahlan,

Even if you weren't a Confessor.

Likewise, there is more to our son

Than just the fact

That he is a male Confessor.

I was desperate, Kahlan.

The last thing I wanted to do

Was hurt our son, our precious son,

But I had to make him cry.

I felt like my only hope to save him

Was to play on your emotions.

A mother, after all,

Has emotions towards a child

That a father

Could never hope to understand.

The mother, after all,

Is the one who carries the child,

Who feels the child growing,

Who hears the child's heartbeat,

Who is the personal witness

To the life that is about to be born.

The father just watches from outside.

My plan worked, Kahlan,

Worse than I expected.

I know how to make

A baby start crying,

But I don't know

How to make a baby stop crying.

How do you shut them up?

I confessed a weakness to you, Kahlan.

I confessed to you

That I had never held a baby before.

I confessed to you

That I didn't know what I was doing,

And that is something

I don't like confessing to.

I need to be in control,

But I was no longer in control.

The baby was the one in control,

And only you, Kahlan,

Could do something about that.

Despite the fact that you hated the baby

For being a boy,

You were not heartless

Like my Mord-Sith are, Kahlan.

You could not forever

Deny our baby's cries.

You reached out for him,

And I gladly handed him to you.

You didn't look at me with hatred

As you took the baby, Kahlan.

Watching you hold our baby close to you

Was the best moment in my life.

Our son would be loved by both of us.

Our son would be safe.

You fell in love with our son, Kahlan.

You smiled at him often.

Even though I wished

That you would smile at me,

I was content in knowing

That you didn't hate our son,

Even if you hated me.

I could live with your hatred for me, Kahlan,

Just as long as you loved our son.

All was well for many years.

You were teaching our son

Everything he needed to know

To one day become a great ruler.

You were a worthy wife and queen, Kahlan,

And you were helping our son

To become a worthy heir.

Life couldn't have been better.

Then, one night,

You tried to kill our son, Kahlan.

I was furious, overwhelmed by anger.

Even though you hated me,

I thought that you loved our son.

What made you do it, Kahlan?

Had you finally decided

That Nicolas was a monster?

Was it because he was a male Confessor?

Was it because he was my son?

Would it have been different, Kahlan,

If you have had a male Confessor

With the Seeker?

If the Seeker had been the child's father,

Would you have seen it as good.

You do, after all, see the Seeker as good.

Surely anything that comes from him is good,

Just like

Surely anything that comes from me is evil.

What made you do it, Kahlan?

I didn't want to kill you, Kahlan.

If your death had been my desire,

I would have killed you

After you had given birth you our son;

But instead, I didn't only leave you alive;

I also allowed you to raise our son.

Even though you hated me, Kahlan,

I loved you.

Even though I hated to see you die, Kahlan,

I didn't think much of it

When Nicholas asked to be the one

To kill you.

After all, I had killed my own father

After he had bragged to me

That the Seeker, my own baby brother,

Would one day kill me.

My father, my own father,Sired the one

Who was supposed to be my murderer.

My father intended for me

To die at the hands of my own baby brother.

Likewise, you had intended to kill Nicholas,

Your own son, your own flesh and blood.

I could understand

What was going through Nicholas's mind.

My son and I, after all, are the same,

Apparently in more ways than one.

After you attempted to murder our son, Kahlan,

I once again loved him

More than I loved you.

How could I not?

My son and I share a bond

That you and I

Could never hope to share, Kahlan.

The world sees my son and I

As monsters, as great evils that need to be destroyed.

I'm sorry, Kahlan, my love,

But someone needed to take care of our son,

Someone needed to protect him

From the narrow-minded, heartless world.

That someone

Definitely wasn't going to be you, Kahlan,

So I had to take your place.

If I wasn't there for our son,

Who would be there for him?

No one.

Just like no one

Was ever there for me.

My son and I are the same.

I didn't cry over your tomb, Kahlan,

Even though I wanted to.

I kept on reminding myself

That I loved our son

More than I had loved you.

Perhaps if you had loved me, Kahlan,

Things would have been different.

Perhaps if I had loved you more than our son,

Things would have been different.

Perhaps our bastard son

Would not have won in the end.

My son, my own precious son, betrayed me,

Just like everyone else in my life

That I had loved had betrayed me.

My own father; then Jennsen, my own baby sister;

Then you, Kahlan, my own wife and queen;

Then finally my own son, my dear Nicholas.

Perhaps I should have given in

To your request, Kahlan.

Perhaps I should have allowed you

To kill our son.

Perhaps things would have been different

If we have had a daughter instead.

Or perhaps not.

I had loved our son,

But he had not loved me in return.

Would a daughter

Really have been any different?

Our son killed both of us, Kahlan.

A daughter probably wouldn't have killed you,

But would she have really doted on me?

You have always seen me as a monster, Kahlan,

Even after I was kind and gentle to you.

Those kind words that you spoke to me

Were merely words of desperation.

You had wanted to kill our son,

And you had tried to play to my emotions

To get your way.

After all, Kahlan, you seek to destroy monsters.

I would have allowed you to raise our daughter, Kahlan,

Just like I had allowed you to raise our son.

You would have taught our daughter to hate me

With as much passion as you hated me, Kahlan.

A daughter would not have doted on her father

No matter how much I would have loved her.

I give love to others,

But I never receive love in return.

Such is the fate of monsters such as myself.


End file.
